{"nrhp_refnum":"79001678","name":"George A. Mears House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"137 Biltmore Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Asheville","county":"Buncombe County","state":"NC","lat":35.590447496000024,"lon":-82.55088953499995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-04-26","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-and-a-half-story common bond brick Queen Anne residence at 137 Biltmore Avenue in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, built about 1885 for merchant George A. Mears.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it the finest surviving residential building in downtown Asheville and one of the city's finer Queen Anne structures. Its slate-shingled mansard roof, prominent gables and finialed dormers are singled out. It is also the last relatively intact remnant of an avenue of upper-class residences that once stretched south from the Patton House.","narrative":"Set on a rise above Biltmore Avenue in Asheville, this two-and-a-half-story brick house was built around 1885 for George A. Mears, a merchant active on South Main Street between 1870 and 1910. His best-known business was the Mears Daylight Store, named for its large expanses of glass, which burned in the 1920s. The house is roughly cubical in plan, with two two-story bays on the front, one semi-octagonal and one rectangular, and a veranda with turned posts and a spindled balustrade wrapping the southeast corner. A patterned slate-shingled mansard roof carries two gables and large gable-roofed dormers topped with sheet-metal finials. Fishscale wood shingles cover one gable. The house was recognized as the finest surviving residential building in downtown Asheville and one of the city's better Queen Anne structures. It is also the last fairly intact remnant of an avenue of upper-class homes that once ran south from the Patton House.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Queen Anne","criteria":[],"status_note":"Both chimneys are described as in poor condition, and a carriage house shown on maps southwest of the house has disappeared.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:56.994743-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/86/7172/47717286/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/79001678.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001678/5fd82ec599-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001678/5fd82ec599-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Farragutful","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_A._Mears_House.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Farragutful</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_A._Mears_House.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47717286","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._Mears_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18154293"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/buncombe-county/george-a-mears-house-79001678/"}